


steal my heart

by twistedsky



Series: ramen24 [9]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-08
Updated: 2015-04-08
Packaged: 2018-03-21 23:16:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,245
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3707165
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twistedsky/pseuds/twistedsky
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Trip/Skye thieves AU. "This guy is good, Skye muses, and he’s making off with her super expensive artwork."</p>
            </blockquote>





	steal my heart

**Author's Note:**

> All mistakes are my own.
> 
> This was written for a writing project called Ramen24.

This guy is good, Skye muses, and he’s making off with _her_ super expensive artwork.

Or, well, it’s the art museum’s artwork, but if she’d gotten there two minutes earlier, then it would be hers very soon. Plus, she wouldn’t be stuck in an air vent watching the guy walk off with the painting she’d been about to steal.

But hey, she’s a thief.

This happens sometimes.

She’s a security specialist(she can hack her way into pretty much any system and bypass all its safeguards with ease), but she uses her hacking skills for easy thievery too—she’ll reroute some money or some expensive cargo to a new destination, and then lift it on the way so that even if the proper owner or the authorities are at the new destination waiting, then it’s already too late.

Every once in a while though, she likes to get her hands dirty.

She shuffles back through the air vent, because there’s no point in waiting for the night guard to wander around on his rounds and notice that an expensive painting is gone.

That’s _her_ priceless painting, and while she could always settle for any other number of paintings in this place, she needs the one her little criminal foe has.

She’s on her way out of the building when she sees him get into his getaway car. She pulls out her phone and snaps a picture of the license plate.

Maybe, if she’s lucky, she can steal it right out of his hands.

~~

She follows his license plate on traffic cams, and sees him hand over the painting nearby.

The buyers are fools, Skye thinks. It’s too easy to track it back to them when they try to get out of town, and hard to pin anything on her mystery thief. She’d taken down the security cameras herself, and she knows there’s no sign he was ever there.

It would have been worth it, she thinks, for them to pay more in order to get it dropped off somewhere else, but if they’re going to make such amateur mistakes, then that’s their problem.

She’s going to get that damn painting.

It’s easy enough to slip it off their truck while they’re not looking. A carefully set off car alarm is enough to grab their attention. She rolls her eyes at that. Silly, silly amateurs.

This painting already has owners—it had been stolen from its original owners, and now Skye is going to get the chance to give it back to the people it belongs to.

And the looks on their faces (from afar, of course, because she prefers not to let people see her face) are even better than the high she gets from a successful job.

~~

Skye takes two sorts of jobs—jobs for good causes, and jobs that entertain her. Sometimes she procures things for people, in the first category, and sometimes she just picks things owned by assholes, and then donates some money to the needy. Then, she goes on vacation, because she’s not goddamn Mother Teresa.

Skye had grown up in foster care, and she’d bounced around from place to place, and she’d never really had much to her name until she’d met a mid-level thief who had been impressed by her skill with computers.

She’d never had a real family before then(and, it turns out, she hadn’t had one then either).

She’d worked with him for a while until he’d betrayed her, and almost gotten her caught. Just for some _money_ , which is the real rub.

He’s in jail now, and she’s still free to do whatever the hell she wants, and she thinks _that’s_ karma, asshole.

Right now she’s got some fancy jewels owned by some gross people, and she’s contemplating hocking them on ebay, just because it’ll be funny, but she generally tries to take this whole thief thing at least _semi_ -seriously, so that’s probably not the best idea

After she drops off the jewels and gets paid, she stops by a diner she likes. She’s plowing into a breakfast platter when the cute thief from the art heist pops up, sliding in across from her.

He’s smooth. She’ll give him points for that. He’s much hotter up close too, though she’s just cataloguing that information _for science._

“You stole those jewels right out from under me,” he says now, and she smiles.

“Really?” she asks sweetly. “I didn’t know you were even there.”

He smiles back at her. No hard feelings, it seems, though she won’t take that for granted.

“You’re very impressive,” he says.

“Thank you,” she replies.

“I’d know, since I’m pretty impressive too.” Okay, Skye decides, she loves this guy.

“That’s true,” Skye laughs. “I saw your work a few weeks ago.”

He gives her a considering look now. “You’re the one who nabbed the piece from my buyers,” he says, full of wonder. “Damn, girl.”

Skye preens a little. “I’m good at what I do.”

“You are,” he says. “And so am I. Do you play well with others?”

Skye gives him a careful look. “Sometimes.”

Not very often these days, but she knows how to maintain relationships, and she knows how to fuck someone up if they double-cross her.

That guy who had trained her, and then betrayed her? Yeah, she was behind sending him to prison, and she’s not sorry.

“Would you like to work with me?” he asks then, and she wants to say yes despite herself.

“I don’t even know your name,” she challenges.

“Trip,” he replies. “You can call me Trip.”

“Skye,” she says, and when the waiter comes around to ask if he’d like to order, she says “Yeah, he would,” and gives him a careful look.

She’s going to give him the benefit of the doubt.

At the very least, this’ll be a fun diversion.

~~

She’s not surprised when they tumble into bed together—in fact, she knew it would happen the moment he slid into the booth across from her, smiling that charming smile of his.

He’d known it too, she thinks, and they’d been careening together quickly from that very second, destined for impact.

It happens quickly, fast and hot, and she sees stars.

She’s pretty sure he’s her weird thief soulmate or some shit like that, but she’s not going to say something like that.

(She’s a romantic, and sometimes a fool, but she won’t admit either of those things on pain of death.)

She is surprised, however, by the fact that one job turns into two, then three, and so on.

The next thing she knows, every job she comes across she mentions to him, and as far as she can tell, he does the same.

They travel together, except when they don’t want to show up on anyone’s radar, but they always meet up quickly, and it’s clear that he doesn’t really have a lot of time to plan other cons, because they’re so busy pulling them together.

(She wonders, sometimes, if maybe she’s just another con for him, but she doesn’t have anything worth his while, except money, and that’s all hidden beyond his reach.)

Maybe, she thinks, they’re just good together.

~~

Thieves rarely work together, because it’s hard to establish and keep trust between them.

It’s too easy to make a mess of things, but somewhere along the way, Skye thinks, you have to find the _right_ person and choose to trust them.

Otherwise, what’s the point of the money?

When Trip smiles at her, and kisses her, and tells her that she’s brilliant, and jobs have never been as easy as they are with her, she lets her heart believe him.

She still wakes up every morning ready to assume he’s gone, maybe already two states or countries away, but he never is.

She gets antsy when he brings her breakfast, though she grows to love it, to trust him.

It’s a mistake, or it should be.

~~

He tells her about his family, and she tells him about her past, and it’s probably a _mistake_ , you know, but she can’t help the words spilling from her lips.

She’s quick to check out his story, and she finds only truth. There’s no record of the life he lives—he disappeared off the face of the earth as far as the world is concerned..

The world doesn’t care about Antoine Triplett any more than it cares about her, and that’s how they like it.

When the world decides to care, then they’ll have a problem, because it’ll mean that they’ve been found out, or caught, and neither of those things is exactly _ideal_.

~~

“Do you ever think about quitting one day?” he asks conversationally, while they’re literally chilling on a beach in Hawaii.

Skye makes a noise. “One day, maybe.” She adjusts her sunglasses and takes a sip of her drink. She’s a stereotypical tourist, and she’s not sorry.

“How about soon?” Trip asks, and she tilts her head toward him to see his face.

“Really?” It’s a thrill, it’s—this is her _life_ , and while she can imagine giving it up in some far off, distant future, she doesn’t know if she’s ready to do so _now_ , at this very moment.

“Yeah,” he says. “I didn’t mind before, because if I got caught, I had nothing to lose. Just money, just—just my freedom, I guess.”

“That’s a lot to lose,” Skye points out, smiling slightly.

“Yeah, but now I have you,” Trip says, and there’s something in his eyes that makes her stomach flutter, and the fact that she loves him is at the tip of her tongue, though she’s not quite ready to admit it yet.

“Oh, do you?” she asks dryly, challenging him to be real with her, not just offer her vague words.

“I hope so,” Trip says, and there’s love in his eyes.

~~

“I love you,” he says, and they’re in Italy, and it’s _romantic._

It’s a little cheesy too, but she thinks he might be a closet romantic too.

For the first time in a long time, she’s let her guard down, and she knows it could blow up in her face. But in her heart, she trusts him. She believes.

“I love you too,” she says, and the fairytale continues.

~~

“After we stop being thieves,” Skye says, “We should take up screwing in random, super secure locations,” she suggests, and Trip laughs, zipping up his pants.

“Babe, I think we’re already doing that,” he points out, and she laughs, leaning forward to kiss him.

“But we could do it all the time. Professionally,” she says.

Trip shakes his head. “I think you just want the challenge,” he says softly.

“I get bored,” Skye says, shrugging slightly.

“Just one more job,” Trip says, “And that’s it.”

Skye wants to argue for more, but she knows he’s right. They can’t keep pressing their luck, and Skye wants more out of life than this.

She wants a family, and she wants it with Trip.

~~

“One more job,” Skye repeats. “Just one more, oh yeah, then we’ll be fine.”

There’s no point in remembering that _she_ was the one most reluctant to give up this way of life, because now they’re trapped in some dark room, both cuffed to the table, and waiting for someone to show up and tell them how much trouble they’re in.

“It was just a fancy gun,” Trip says, “You wouldn’t think it’d cause so much commotion.”

“It wasn’t just a gun,” a man says, stepping into the room. “It was a lot more than that.”

“Are you FBI?” Skye asks, scrunching her nose up and trying to place him. “We haven’t done anything bad enough for the CIA to care. That’s kind of a CIA suit though.”

“We didn’t do anything, honey,” Trip says now, folding his arms in front of himself as if he’s perfectly comfortable where he is. He does it smoothly, despite the fact that he’s still handcuffed to the table.

Skye does the same. Or, well, she tries, but her movements are more awkward than his fluid ones.

But whatever, Skye thinks. Her face is unreadable, hopefully.

They’re playing defense, they have no idea what’s going on, or why they’re here.

This is the story, and also mostly the truth.

They know the _why_ , of course, since they did just technically try to steal the thing from the weird building.

In fact, they’d succeeded. They’d gotten all the way to a motel two towns away when the weird people in suits had shown up and shoved bags over their heads.

“We’re not here to arrest you,” the secret agent man says. “Or, well, we might be.”

“What are you here to do then?” Skye asks, actually kind of curious.

“Recruit you,” the man says. “Interested?”

Skye and Trip exchange a careful look, and they look back at the man.

“Depends,” Trip says.

“We’re going to need a little more information,” Skye says, but if they’re about to be recruited by some weird intelligence agency, Skye’s pretty sure they’re both in, and not just because they don’t want to go to prison.

They’re both too interested in the chase to give it up forever anyway.

“Have you ever heard of SHIELD?” the man asks, and they both shake their heads.

Skye reaches out for Trip’s hand, and has the sneaking suspicion that something big is happening right here and now.

And hey, she’s right.


End file.
